Listen up.
It is hard to speak to this:
outdoors the low rumble
of something, trucks or
an unseen train, perhaps;
perhaps the accumulated
higher pitched rattle of cars;
I don’t know. It doesn’t
come toward me, that much I know.
It’s just a suggestion civilization
is making — that I ought
to get going. That I ought
to be out there, too.

Listen, please listen.
I did not choose this selection.
It was driven by health or maybe
another choice — perhaps
a semi-deliberate slip and slide
toward some edge I never recognized?
Trees, leaves, soil have gone to sleep
until spring; snow from last week
covers black tar, and none were involved
in my choices to stay inside and
to stay gone from this busy world.

Turn away if you must.
Reflection of my past in my darling
memory is all I have to hold.
All I have is bright memories
I love, or used to love. Whenever
I close my eyes I see them
in rumbling vehicles,
amidst shrubs’ barren sticks,
fading slowly off in unmelting snow.
I close my eyes yet again,
hoping for a listener to make sense
of all of this. I hold out my hand —
listen, I beg you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

I wake up to realize
it doesn’t matter what I say.
It doesn’t matter at all.

I am sitting in the living room
without a true care in the world.
Lots of false care, lots of forlorn hope;

none of it matters. None of it.
All of it is forlorn and nothing
is a true care. In a long run

of living, of life, I am still here
and that’s what matters. The sorrow
and the triumph all the same;

nothing matters at all. I just
don’t sit here involved in anything;
just sit, a blank look on my face,

an empty head on my stooped shoulders.
It’s almost a comfort to acknowledge it.
Almost makes it worthwhile.

The pure light of emptiness
lifts me up and holds me, transparent,
opposed to fullness.

I just said it: I am almost comforted
by knowing my emptiness, and soon
it will drain away completely.

And that’s a good thing. That is what I want.
The pure light of empty being.
The empty light, the light of being full

of not wanting any thing or thought.
I didn’t know it would be like this.
If I had, I never would have done otherwise.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

I sit with a coffee

Cannot help but think
on a cold morning
on this the final day
of November

of how I’ve got
prescriptions to pick up
and over the counter meds as well

Maybe have another coffee afterward

Sit and sip and ponder
those lives I’ve lived
and that I’ve ended living
with no death to speak of

The last chapter of the book I was writing
just ended without a warning
just ended with no closure
just ended with not even a whimper
just ended with no hope of a sequel

I sit with coffee

If I have time
before the next book begins
it will likely be the final book

There is so little time left
before the start
before the ending
before I begin again
before I close

One more cup then

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Toward the top of the hour,
he stood on the floor
of the hospital room
and looked her in one eye.

One eye
looked back
as blue as a wound
or a memory.

Her memory fell into
a cavern and landed softly
on stony ground, untouched
and unmarked by rocks.

Those rocks rose and fell,
rose and fell as if
waves willfully tossed them at her skin
and caught them as they returned.

He stood in the doorway
of a hospital room
and counted those rocks —
one, two, three — as they fell

ordinarily on a linoleum floor
and clattered as they landed
on a memory, on her skin;
her skin, her malleable skin.

He watched them for hours
as they fell as stars fell upon her.
Turned away crying, crying out.
He watched them fall. He watched,

and sobbed himself dry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

“I don’t know what it takes to be chosen;”
an arresting line
from a song on the radio.
I don’t know that I know either —
sitting
in my accustomed chair, weary
of it, tired of the seesaw,
the up and down of this;
I sit and wonder for hours
why I can’t be chosen.

The guitar next to me? Untouched
and stubborn in its refusal to be played well.
The poems I’ve written? Unread
and mostly forgotten unless I struggle.
The life I live? What of it? My hair is uncombed,
my teeth unbrushed, my beard just this side
of looking unkempt. I look a mess.

“I don’t know what it takes to be chosen…”
well, I will never know, I think.

So I will sit here, unselected. I’ll wait for time
to end for me, for others.
I’ll sit long hours in this ratty chair
waiting for the impossible to happen —
waiting for an unknown choice
to make itself known; so.
I will remain here
breathlessly unsteady, not able
to understand what it means
or what, if any, the available choices are;
perhaps there are none
or perhaps there are a million and one;
perhaps I have done so already.
I sit here waiting to be chosen;
waiting for a wave
to lift me up and carry me away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Ruined, I am ruined
by the progress of years.
Each day starts with a token try —
I can’t get out of bed without
great effort which I’d rather be turning
to making love, if I was not alone;
to making art, since I am. What
would I be making? Since you asked,

maybe I’d take up painting, maybe
my old guitar would call me;
maybe I’d just sit and think and write
fantastic thoughts of dragons or something;
of the end of the current
administration at the hands
of the electorate — maybe.

Instead I struggle to the bathroom
and weigh myself, cheering my
tiny poundage loss; I make coffee
on the way to my measurements —
blood sugar, blood pressure — then I dress
and come out to here, to the computer,
to address the world as I see it.

It’s a relief to puzzle
over this dilemma: I’m a mess
of conflicting huge desires and
mundane needs. To wonder
about making love — there it is
again — or rising from bed
at all; why do I bother? Does
making room on the page
do a damn bit of good for
any fantasy I might harbor
for my healed self; does any vision
of my healed self include
any other — or am I lost, lost
alone amid my fantasies?

I don’t know. I sit here
with a cup of coffee and
my dream of self-sustenance.

I don’t know. I sit here
blank inside and nondescript
outside; ruined face, muscles
not firm, most of all
my old eyes — sunken ships.

They look out and see the ocean
as the end of things. They look out
and see no fish, no shells,
nothing but waves overhead
driven by winds unseen
while I sit calmly
at the bottom of the dark ocean
and think of anything at all
that differs from this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

I pour a large cup
of bitter coffee. I go
sit in the living room,
pull out this computer,
and I write after I sit for a bit.
Sip the coffee now and then;
mostly, I just sit.

Sitting is the aspect of living
I enjoy the most, hate the most,
am spending the most time in.
Sometimes a cat sits with me;
mostly, I just sit alone.

Turn on the radio
and don’t groove along
to any song, really, at all.
If I recognize anyone
I’m happy for a second, then I go back
to sitting, alone, in my worn chair;
I mostly just sit.

The window behind me
holds back the cars, the wind
and the rain, the definite articles
that pin down this earth to a case study
(and there are people who prefer it)
they can review, and study, and ponder
like it matters that you think of it,
think of anything at all; mostly,
though, I just sit.

Sitting is what I do
and sitting is the most I can do,
the least I can do. Mostly
I just sit, and think, pet the cat,
drink coffee, sit some more.

I’d get up and do something else
but what is there to do anyway
that will change this world
the way I want? After all

I am a cripple in despair,
I am a hero waiting for my chance,
I am temporarily snapped to a mold;
you can accept it, say “there, there…”
and pat my head, shake yours
as you turn from me, just sitting there,
a permanently lonely memory perhaps;

but really, I’m just sitting here with my coffee,
my cat on my lap.
and this whole damnable,
lovable world surging behind
my tightly shut eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T